It’s a conscious consumer’s world. How do Companies make a lasting impression?

Corporate reputation underpins perception and impacts the market value of organisations. According to a recent research report by AMO (a leading international strategic advisory network), in the financial year FY ’19, corporate reputations accounted for 35.3% of total capitalisation of the world’s top 15 stock market indices, representing $16.77 trillion in shareholder value. Companies with stronger corporate reputations are more likely to withstand stock market shockwaves.

Mahindra is a global, diversified Group operating in 22 industries with 250,000+ employees across 150 companies and 100 countries under a federated structure. Each of the operating companies enjoy substantial independence and are governed by their respective Boards. Our corporate brand Mahindra and what it stands for, is the uniting factor in this diverse federation. Hence, in our case, the importance of building and sustaining corporate reputation cannot be overstated. There are many building blocks to this.

1.Set a Corporate Purpose that’s rooted in Core Values

A company’s reputation is no longer defined merely by what it produces, but how it behaves and what it stands for. Our business endeavours are aligned to our corporate purpose, Rise. This is rooted in our core values which are immutable and have defined us since our birth in 1945. Our core values guide all our decisions and actions, and demarcate the boundaries beyond which we will not venture.

2.Live the Purpose and Values

Reputation is built and sustained basis action, not mere intent. Our core purpose Rise guides our businesses endeavours. For example, Mahindra Finance provides loans to the not-so-creditworthy, to fund their dreams. We have also ensured that our corporate purpose is an integral part of our employee recruitment, training and evaluation process.

3.Make Governance and Ethics, not just a purpose, but also a process

Governance goes beyond mere compliance. Governance is the framework of rules and practices by which the board of directors ensures accountability, fairness, and transparency in a company's relationship with all its stakeholders. To institutionalise Governance as a process, every point of decision-making needs to be tested for the following 3 Cs: Compliance, Competence, and Conflict of interest eradication. Further, we have institutionalised Governance as a Process through a rigorous implementation of the 3 Cs, a universally relevant Code of Conduct, and a Governance e-cockpit that ensures compliance with our policies and protocols, and which has further enhanced our journey from Compliance to Governance.

4 .Communicate often and effectively

The above enumerated building blocks would be underleveraged without an effective Communication strategy. There are four simple principles that are recommended:

Consistent and Authentic brand messaging: Mahindra is Innovative and Mahindra Cares are core messages that we communicate as a corporate brand. Both emanate from Rise and its three pillars.

360 degree communication: Use the PESO model (Paid, Earned, Social, Owned media), to break through clutter and make an impact in a world of ever-shortening attention spans and a surfeit of messages.

Equip to communicate in real-time: The importance of tracking social media and digital trends, riding them, and whenever possible, even shaping them, cannot be over-stated.

Be prepared for crisis: It may hit you when you least expect it. Have an early warning system to pick it up, an SOP to deal with it, and a mechanism to learn from it.

Reputation, like trust, takes years – even decades – to build, but can be dented in a day. It is an organisation’s most precious asset. Using all the above mechanisms and pointers should help in the journey to build and sustain corporate reputation.

Ruzebh Irani

Ruzbeh is the President (Group Communications & Ethics) and the Chief Brand Officer at the Mahindra Group. He leads the Corporate Brand, Communications, PR, Ethics, Racing and Culture functions of the Mahindra Group. Marketing, Branding and Ethics are his key topics of interest.

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